Set in a cricket Pavilion, Outside Edge deals with an eventful Saturday afternoon in the lives of five men and four women. Roger struggles to keep together his team to play against the British Railways Maintenance Division Yeading East, while the wives and girlfriends of his players help and hinder to devastating and hilarious effects.

With its cracking comic script, absence of set changes and a cast almost equally split between men and women, Outside Edge is not surprisingly a perennial favourite among amateur drama groups and their audiences

The action takes place at the cricket pavilion before and during a match, with the pitch being offstage where the audience is sitting.

While the play is ostensibly about cricket, it’s actually about relationships - and Harris is soon lifting the lid on all manner of angst and extra-marital shenanigans among the lead characters.

The Cast.

Roger (The Club Captain) – Peter Simmons

Miriam (Roger's Wife) – Jennifer Scott-Reid

Bob – Richard Westbrook

Dennis – Stephen Williams

Kevin – Keith Nuttall

Maggie (Kevin's Wife) – Charlotte Foster

Ginnie (Bob's Wife) – Netti Hayes

Alex – James Kirk

Sharon – Corinne Wilkinson

Director – Gordon Cummings

A review by Rex Walford

'Quintessential Play Keeps you

on the Outside Edge'

In the depths of gloomy February, a white-coated, Panama-hated and be-sweatered umpire marshalled the front-of house as Clavering Players entertained their audiences with a play which perceptively captures aspects of a quintessential English summer pastime - local cricket - though, as producer Gordon Cummings observed in the programme note, the triumphs are travails of North Orpington C.C. would strike a chord with anyone involved in a club or voluntary society of any kind.

Richard Harris' delightful, soft-centred, comedy begins on the steps of a cricket pavilion just before the Saturday game is due to start. Captain of the team Roger Dervish (played with unrelenting fervour by Peter Simmons) is gathering his troops, but beset by last-minute cancelations and the complications created by wives and girlfriends. Bob, the number 3 batsman (Richard Westbrook) send Roger distraught by ducking out to see his ex-wife, but his present wife Ginnie (Netti Hayes) arrives unexpectedly to sunbathe on the pavilion steps.

Dennis, a carpet-salesman, (Stephen Williams) who apparently gets everything on discount, is doing his best to ingratiate himself with all and sundry and surveying the talent. Little Kevin the off-spinner has a bad finger, but is being solicitously mothered by big fur coated D-I-Y enthusiast Maggie, who loves him to death - a well-characterised pair of cameos from Keith Nuttall and Charlotte Foster, who didn't quite have the full physical contrast ideally needed, but who provided a spirited double-act.

Alex the young public schoolboy (given sharp definition by James Kirk), brings along a go-go dancer whom he has met the night before but whom, in the cold light of day, he treats with disdain.

Poor Sharon (a despairingly cheerful Corine Wilkinson), overcome with social angst, eventually locks herself in the lavatory to escape the small talk she can't handle. Behind all this Rogers wife potters busily, preparing the teas as she always has, but harbouring resentment about being taken for granted and also growing doubt about what Roger did in Dorking last summer. Jennifer Scott-Reid’s portrayal of the long-suffering Mim was a key factor in the success of the evening, her anguished body-language often offering a telling contrast to her even toned demeanour.

This piece was gently and honestly played, and while some of the performers seemed to lack the experience and skill to deliver and embellish the delicious comedy one-liners and fully exploit the foibles Harris provides in his characters, the play worked up vital pace and colour in the well-choreographed second act.

Ken Kemp's effective set brought much of the action downstage. The scoreboard was authentically erratic, and a brilliant pastiche publication accompanied the programme - a 1972 cricket yearbook displaying the talents of the gallant members of N.O.C.C - which added greatly to the enjoyment of the evening.